The purpose of this blog is to provide analytical commentary on formal and informal labour organisations and their attempts to resist ever more brutal forms of exploitation in today’s neo-liberal, global capitalism.

Tuesday, 16 August 2016

Super-exploitation and resistance: different forms of workers protests in China.

China is
frequently considered to be an example of successful developmental catch-up.
And yet, the country’s impressive growth rates are to a large extent based on
the super-exploitation of its workforce expressed in long working hours, low
wages, and a general lack of basic welfare benefits such as medical insurance
and work-injury insurance (Chan
and Selden, 2014, p. 606). In our recently published
article ‘Exploitation and resistance: a comparative analysis of the Chinese
cheap labour electronics and high-value added IT sectors’, published in the journal Globalizations and freely accessible online,
Chun-Yi Lee and I compare the electronics sector in the area of Shenzhen, based
on cheap labour assembling goods for export, with the IT
sector in the area of Shanghai, relying
on a more skilled workforce manufacturing high-value added goods. It is asked in what way these rather different
locations within the global political economy condition the form and contents
of resistance in these two sectors.

Cheap labour in the global political economy

A closer analysis of the Chinese production structure reveals a
rather fragile picture of Chinese economic growth. First, China has mainly focused on low value-added, cheap
labour industrial sectors in its industrialisation drive. Thus, it has become the major regional assembly platform in Asia. A large
part of regional trade is the trade in parts and components especially in ICT
products and electrical goods in the direction of China, where they are
assembled on the basis of cheap labour (Hart-Landsberg,
2013, p. 34). In turn, these products are mainly destined for markets in
North America and Europe integrating East Asia tightly with the global economy,
but also making it dependent on continuing demand in the Global North. Equally
important, Chinese exports are dominated by foreign TNCs, which control about 85 percent of China’s high technology exports (Hart-Landsberg,
2015, p. 5). In short, China’s production is
mainly based on cheap-labour, low value-added activities, dominated by foreign
TNCs and highly dependent on access to markets elsewhere.Our
first case study the electronics goods sector in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) around Shenzhen characterised
by companies such as Foxconn is precisely part of this cheap-labour,
export-oriented strategy.

Nevertheless,
China’s technological capacity is also characterised by unevenness. Cheap
labour and low technology production are combined in some areas with medium and
small pockets of advanced technology. Our second case study of the IT industry
in the area around Shanghai, the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), is an example of
higher value-added production. It rose as the second regional driver of massive
FDI into and export out of central costal China during the 1990s and into the
21st century. This
model heavily relies on careful planning and aggressive action by the municipal
government to create an attractive environment. The most prominent and
successful planned projects are the Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP) as well as the
Suzhou New District (SND).

As
a result of these different locations within the global political economy and
diverging social relations of production, the social class forces of labour are
rather different in both industrial sectors. In the electronics sector in the
PRD, workers are generally less skilled and the turnover of the workforce is
high with cheap labour being easily replaced. By contrast, employment relations
in the IT sector in the YRD are more stable and the workforce more highly
skilled. In what way do these rather different
locations in the global economy condition the types of class struggle?

These rather different social relations of
production and their different locations in the global political economy, we
argue, have a strong influence on the type of informal labour NGOs in the two
sectors as well as the nature of labour NGO – government relations. As our
empirical findings in the article indicate, with work in the electronics
industry in the PRD being based on cheap labour and super-exploitation,
industrial conflict is more likely. Labour NGOs, often not officially registered
and not accepting government money, assist workers in getting their individual,
but also collective rights vis-à-vis employers.

By contrast, the higher-value added production
in the IT sector in the YRD requires more stable employment relations and,
therefore, better working conditions to ensure a more satisfied workforce. The
state is much more involved and informal labour NGOs, which willingly accept
government funding and register officially, concentrate on organising
interesting cultural activities for workers’ free time. They almost perform a
mediating role between employers and employees, supported by the government, in
order to ensure a smooth functioning of the more high-value added production
process.

Worker militancy
has not been without success in the PRD. As a result of
class struggle, export industries have been forced to accept significant wage
increases in recent years. ‘Between 2008 and 2012, nominal statutory minimum
wages increased annually by 12.6 percent on average’ (Chan
and Selden, 2014, p.605). When the Chinese
economy recovered after the global financial crisis and workers became stronger
and more militant again, the Chinese state felt compelled to take their demands
seriously and intervene with more pro-labour policies. Nevertheless, the state
and employers have not only given in to workers’ increasing unrest. On the one
hand, yes, the state passed some pro-labour policies including increases in the
official minimum wage. On the other, it has clamped down on informal labour
NGOs especially in the PRD, considered to be involved in recent unrest (Pringle, 2015). Equally, while
employers have upgraded some of their production facilities, these struggles
continue to be embedded within the wider global capitalist dynamics. Some manufacturing units have been transferred to countries with cheaper
labour such as Vietnam. Hence, the success of struggles in China
will ultimately also depend on the outcome of struggles in other countries.

Andreas Bieler is Professor of Political Economy in the School of
Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham/UK

Chun-Yi Lee is Lecturer in the School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham/UK.

We
acknowledge the grant of £275k by the Economic and Social Research Council
(ESRC) for the project on ‘Globalisation, national transformation and workers’
rights: an analysis of Chinese labour within the global economy’
(RES-062-23-2777). The article, on which this post is based, is part of our
outputs from this research project.